Wages on days of inclement weather

Closing operations due to inclement weather raises the question of compensation for employees.  A major factor to determine is if they are exempt or non-exempt employees.  To preserve an employees’ exempt status employers are prohibited from making deductions for absences caused by the employer.  You must assume that all your exempt employees’ were ready, willing and able to come to work and are unable to doc their pay.

Employers have no obligation for compensation to non-exempt employees’ under FLSA for days when the business operation is closed.  Employers’ only have to pay them for actual hours worked.  If the employer doesn’t communicate the closure to employees prior to their arrival they employer would be responsible to pay employees’ for time worked.

For more information or help in creating policies and procedures please contact StaffScapes at 303-466-7864 or visit our website at www.staffscapes.com.

DOL restates requirement to pay employees for all time worked, even if it was not approved by the employer.

In a recent Department of Labor Opinion Letter concerning break and meal policies, the Department restates that any work done by the employee, regardless of approval, must be compensated by the employer. The Code of Federal Regulations 29 CFR 785.13 states:

“In all such cases it is the duty of the management to exercise its control and see that the work is not performed if it does not want it to be performed. It cannot sit back and accept the benefits without compensating for them. The mere promulgation of a rule against such work is not enough. Management has the power to enforce the rule and must make every effort to do so.”

The year 2009 or 2010 may bring an extra payday to employees.

Next year or the following, brings another possibility of an extra payday for many workers. Employees that are paid on a weekly basis and certain biweekly paid employees may have an extra payday depending if their employers chose to pay employees prior to or after the normal payday of January 1, 2010.  Since January 1^st is a federal holiday, employers will need to decide to pay their employees early (December 31, 2009) or after (January 4, 2010).  Based on this decision, the employees will have a 53^rd paycheck if they are paid weekly or a 27^th paycheck if they are paid biweekly. If the employer chooses to pay the employees early then 2009 will be the year with an extra payday. If the employees are paid after the holiday then 2010 will be the year affected.

Not all biweekly paid employees will have an extra pay.  Only those employees that have a normal payday of January 2, 2009 will have this extra pay scenario.  If the biweekly paid employee is normally paid on January 9, 2009, then there is not the extra payday possibility.

This extra payday does not mean that employees are being overpaid. Employees that are paid on a per hour basis still worked those hours so they are not being paid extra.  However, employees that are paid based on an annual salary will be paid an extra paycheck which would result in a higher salary for the year. Due to this possibility we suggest that every employer review their compensation plans for the 2009 and 2010 years.

Jobless Claims still on the rise, exceeding expectations

The US is paying benefits to nearly five million people, who do not have jobs. Unemployed workers who are receiving benefits came to an all time high reaching up to five million at the beginning of February. Jobless claims linger well above the projections of 600,000 from the Federal Reserve. Marking the fourth consecutive week were those receiving benefits has been at a record high of 4.99 million and rising. The complexity people are having is not finding another job, which means benefits are forced to be offered longer. An additional 1.5 million people are receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program that congress approved last year. This number added to the already increasing number of people receiving unemployment benefits reaches 6.54 million. New applications for unemployment are pouring in and total 627,000 in last week alone. This is more than economists expected. The claims also are the highest tally since October 1982 when the economy was emerging from a steep recession, even though the work force has almost doubled since then. More business are continuing to make layoffs and cut spending which is heightening concerns on the recession currently the longest in a quarter century. The Fed released a new economic forecast that reduced it current growth forecast for 2009. The forecast also increased the unemployment rate projections. The new forecast predicts unemployment to reach among 8.5% and 8.8% instead of the previous prediction of 7.6%. The President was in Denver this week to sign into law a stimulus program of $787 billion and then in Arizona for a $75 billion program for the mortgage foreclosures which is said to help the economy back from this recession.

Source: www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/19/jobless-claim-hit-time-high/